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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes